You're a Grand Old Flag

Music and Lyrics by: George M. Cohan

Arranged By: Ian E. Charleton

Broadway March with Featured Vocalist. $30

George M. Cohan said that his inspiration for this classic came from an
encounter he had with a Civil War veteran who fought at Gettysburg.Cohan noticed the vet held a carefully folded but ragged old flag.
The man reportedly then turned to Cohan and said, "She's a grand old
rag." Cohan later, renamed the song "You're a Grand Old Flag.

This arrangement pays tribute to this story and they lyrics
of Cohan’s song by incorporating melodies of several other patriotic American
songs.The arrangement begins with
a nod Eugene Bagley’s perennial march “National Emblem.”This march, used by all branches of the
US military to process the flag in ceremonies references Cohan’s lyric “You’re
the emblem of / The land I love.”Next is a song contemporary to the
Civil War itself “The Battle Cry of Freedom” by George F. Root with its lyric
“Yes, we’ll rally ‘round the flag.”And finally, another song contemporary to the Civil War, “Columbia, the
Gem of The Ocean.”These tunes are
adapted and used as underpinning to support the lyric of Cohan’s classic.